


Contemporaries

by st_aurafina



Category: Doctor Who, Dracula - Stoker, House M.D., Star Trek: The Original Series, The X-Files, Twilight - Meyer
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-19
Updated: 2009-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 09:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five extraordinary doctors Carlisle has known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contemporaries

1890\. Doctor Abraham Van Helsing

There had been a disturbing note of sensationalism hanging about Van Helsing's lecture tour, but Carlisle attended, hopeful of some further mention of the doctor's early but well-received work on transmissible diseases of blood. As the lecture progressed in horrifying, bloody detail, the hall filled with nervous rustling and gasps. A woman shrieked and fainted, and had to be carried out insensate by her husband and the ushers. Carlisle himself became more and more still, until his unmoving posture began to draw attention. He left the theatre swiftly, murmuring apologies as he brushed past each seat, trying to ignore the elevated heart-rates and excited perspiration of his neighbours. In the lobby, he leaned his head against the cool marble wall and willed his anger to dissipate. He didn't know which desperate brother had fallen victim to Van Helsing's depredation, but he offered a prayer up for his peaceful rest and safety for the ones that loved him. And then, because he had taken an oath to do no harm, Carlisle offered his assistance to the group attending the fainted woman.

***

1972\. The Doctor

The double heartbeat called through the forest – perfectly synchronous, sharing circulation, the sounds of one compression echoing in the other. Two hearts, one body: the sound was hypnotic, and Carlisle could not resist, not at the end of a hunt, with the taste of bear's blood still on his tongue. The euphoria of the pursuit was still upon him, and Carlisle was following the sound before he realised that his feet were moving. He scrabbled at reason as he ran – what kind of creature has two hearts? Where had it come from? The sound had started suddenly, as if a door had suddenly opened, and someone had stepped out into his forest. His mind rebelled at the thought of another predator in his territory, and the hunter inside him was unleashed.

He spotted the man standing on a low hillock, beside an improbable blue wooden box. Carlisle slowed his steps, and moved silently from tree to tree, the better to observe the tall, white haired man who was not a man. The heartbeats didn't waver as the intruder threw his cape over his shoulder and craned his neck towards Carlisle's hiding place.

"I can see you, there. Come out, now, show yourself. I mean you no harm, and I suspect that you would rather not harm me either. "

Before Carlisle could respond, something mechanical droned to life behind him; he turned in time to see a slender stone column appear out of nowhere. A door opened in the column, and somehow, from inside a space too small to contain him, stepped a man dressed in black, with the same slow double pulse. The man looked past Carlisle as if he were as unremarkable as one of the trees, and met the eyes of the white haired stranger with a smirk. "I said that I'd find you, eventually."

Carlisle looked from one man to the other with a snarl, and moved slowly backwards until he was no longer caught between those rapidly accelerating heartbeats. This was a hunt in which he wanted no part.

***

1985\. Doctor Gregory House

"Do you know something I don't about the egg salad?"

The voice made Carlisle jump. He was accustomed to the hospital café being quiet at night. Gregory House, one of the newest interns, loomed at him over the top of his newspaper. They both looked at the untouched sandwich between them for a moment.

"Nothing that I know of," said Carlisle, "I wasn't as hungry as I thought. If you'd like it, you're very welcome." He nodded encouragingly towards the sandwich, his expression bland, forgettable. _Forget about me,_ he willed the man.

"Awesome." Doctor House scooped the plate closer, and took a bite, washing it down with a mouthful of Carlisle's coffee. Carlisle folded his newspaper and left, aware of the man's eyes on his back even after he'd passed through the double doors.

After that, Doctor House was everywhere, especially when Carlisle didn't want to be under scrutiny.

"I hear you moonlight at St Joseph's." This time House was smoking in the parking garage, leaning against the sign that read 'Reserved: Doctor Carlisle Cullen'. "I suppose that explains how you can afford a car like that on a university hospital salary, but it doesn't explain when you have time to sleep."

Carlisle pulled his briefcase from the passenger seat of the BMW and locked the door. "I don't need much sleep." He walked towards the elevators without looking back; his teeth were clenched.

"I totalled up your rosters from both hospitals." House called after him. Carlisle heard the cigarette sizzle against the beaded surface of his car's windshield. "Next week you're working one hundred and sixty consecutive hours. I guess the coffee is better at St Joe's."

It was easy for a man with Carlisle's abilities to make himself scarce whenever House was scouting him out. Unfortunately Carlisle used his acute senses for more than just avoiding annoying interns - he used them as a diagnostic tool when mechanical means failed. House finally cornered him in the pediatric ward, hand splayed across the chest of a sick boy, fingers transmitting the valve sounds and blood flow in the major vessels supplying the heart.

"You have quite a diagnostic record," House unwrapped a lollipop stolen from the nurses' desk, and popped it in his mouth. "I've been trying to figure out your method of approach, but it makes no sense. Take this kid," he gestured to the semi-conscious child in the bed before them. "We both know his aorta is slowly zipping open. I knew to look for it in the labs, but you? I know you haven't looked at the results because I've got them in my pocket. So, tell me, what's your differential for an aortic dissection too small to see on ultrasound? Share the secret, dude. Unless you're just, I don't know, listening to the valve sounds or something."

Carlisle looked at House sourly. Damn, damn, damn. Now he would have relocate. Ann Arbor had been working so well – everyone was settled, happy. And now this insolent ass had disturbed his family's stability and safety. He clenched his hand into a fist.

House's eyebrows shot into his hair and he spat out the lollipop to gape open mouthed at Carlisle. "Wait, you really can hear the valve sounds? I was joking. I mean, I thought you actually had skill, not a freaky super-power."

Carlisle had him pressed against the wall by his throat before he could speak another word. "You will not speak of this to anyone." The words came out in a growl and he took a slow breath to calm himself, not because he needed to breathe. Nobody would believe this ridiculous man – House was known as an attention-seeker. And there was that nasty business at Johns Hopkins that had gotten him expelled.

House's feet drummed against the wall. Carlisle lowered him to the ground and released his grip on the man's throat. House coughed and spluttered, leaning on the bed to catch his breath. "So, it's something," he reached for a definition, "Supernatural, this diagnostic ability?"

Carlisle folded his arms. "I don't want to compete with you. I just want to help people."

"Well," House bent down and picked up his lollipop and brushed the fluff off it before he tucked it into his mouth again. "I don't want to compete with you, either – what you do doesn't take skill." He spoke around the stick as he gently palpated his own throat. "There's no challenge competing with someone who'sjust a better kind of x-ray machine." With that, House loped away from the ward. Shortly after, Carlisle could hear him harassing the nurse at the desk for another piece of candy. Warily, he made a few notes on the boy's chart, then left in the opposite direction.

***

1998\. Doctor Dana Scully

Carlisle's receptionist ushered them into his office with wide eyes; the FBI had little reason to call on the local physician, and Carlisle knew this would be big news in the township later. He stood up and held out his hand. "How can I help you, Agents?"

The tall man, Agent Mulder, shook his hand and gestured to his partner. "Doctor Cullen, my partner, Doctor Scully, has a profile of medical symptoms we'd like you to look over. We're specifically looking for any local cases of death by exsanguination."

Carlisle's stomach dropped as he scanned the file that Agent Scully handed him. "What do you mean? Has someone been hurt?" Someone crossing their territory, perhaps, dragging scrutiny with them. Or one of his own children? Jasper? He deliberately calmed his body language, meeting the agents' eyes when they spoke to him. They must not suspect anything, he must not bring danger down on his family.

"Vampires." Agent Mulder let the word hang in the air between them.

"Or vampire-like activity," Agent Scully added. She ignored the scornful glance from her partner.

Carlisle looked between the two of them. "Vampires," he said slowly. "But, of course it can't be vampires."

Mulder leaned over his desk. "Why not? Extend your world-view – who knows what kind of monsters inhabit the dark spaces that we dare not look into? Why couldn't it be vampires?"

"Because they don't exist." Carlisle said it firmly, solidly playing the phlegmatic country doctor to the best of his abilities.

Mulder made an exasperated noise with his nose, and turned to the window to look out at the passers-by. Agent Scully handed Carlisle a card. "Please, call us if you see or hear of anything that fits our profile."

"Of course, " Carlisle took the card and examined it. "Be careful out there in the darkness, Agent Mulder."

"Or the light," said Mulder, ominously. "These vampires have no fear of the sun."

"Vampires that can come out in the daylight?" Carlisle laughed: genial, inoffensive. "Now, Agents, that's just unbelievable."

***

2252\. Doctor Leonard McCoy

The afternoon xeno-haematology lecture was even more crowded than usual. Carlisle had to use slightly more than human ability to slip between a cluster of bickering Caitians and slide into his regular seat. Attending medical school in San Francisco was problematic for a man who preferred to avoid direct sunlight, but the risk was worth it for the chance to update his medical education with the Federation's best physicians. And it didn't take long for him to realise that a medical student in the twenty-third century didn't see a lot of sunshine, not with the physiologies of dozens of races with which to become familiar.

Leonard hooked his satchel off the seat beside him to make room. "You took your time getting here. I almost gave your seat away to that Denobulan immunologist." He leaned a little closer to whisper in Carlisle's ear. "She told me some things they didn't put in the Denobulan anatomy unit."

Carlisle set up his PADD. "I can see that you're torn between Denobulan pheromones and my excellent lecture notes." They'd been sitting together since third year. Carlisle supplemented Leonard's appallingly sporadic notes and in return Leonard covered for him on field trips when the weather forced Carlisle to stay home, claiming migraines, hangovers, or better things to do on sunny days.

Leonard snorted. "I certainly am." He nudged his own PADD with disgust. "They're training us to be doctors, for God's sake, not stenographers."

The lecture began, and soon Carlisle was lost in the elegant complexities of alien haemoglobin.

"You know what I'm going to do, when we're done with all this?" Leonard whispered very softly so as not to catch the attention of the austere Vulcan lecturer. "I'm signing up with Starfleet. Want to come along?"

Carlisle laughed under his breath. "Leonard, are you asking me to run away with you? What on earth would I say to Esme?"

Leonard scowled. "We wouldn't be on Earth, that's the whole point."

Carlisle shook his head. "I'm sorry, Leonard. I'm a home and hearth kind of man. I think I'd better keep my feet on the ground."

Leonard snorted loud enough that the Vulcan lecturer looked in their direction with a pointed expression. He and Carlisle put their heads down over their PADDs and pretended it had been the students behind them, and the lecture resumed. Carlisle took the opportunity to look once over the hall filled with students from a dozen different races, then back fondly at his friend. Perhaps, with people like Leonard travelling the stars, there would soon be a time when he would no longer have to hide his nature from the people he lived amongst. The universe was, after all, a very big place, and anything was possible.


End file.
